


Day 4: Roommates

by GemmaRose



Series: FMA Rarepair Week 2017 [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Collateral Damage, Fights, Fist Fights, Gen, Prank Wars, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 02:32:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12202110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: It's not having a roommate that Ranfan minds. It's having to share space withher.





	Day 4: Roommates

Ranfan stopped three steps in through the door, and nearly dropped the box of supplies in her arms. A cat was sitting on a box set atop one of the beds, staring at her. A cat she recognized as belonging to one Mei Chang, the bratty younger half-sister of her lifelong best friend. She turned around and walked back down the stairs, right up to the folding table covered with a cheap plastic tablecloth which bore a marker and construction paper sign proclaiming itself a source of Move-In Assistance.

“I think I have the wrong room number.” she said without preamble, shifting the box to hold under one arm so she could fish out her wallet with the other. “Ranfan Fu, 230186.” she opened her wallet to display her student ID to the senior sitting behind the table. They looked it over, then picked up the clipboard in front of them and flipped through a few pages.

“Room 309.” they said, giving her a smile so cheerful it had to be fake. Ranfan frowned.

“In that case, I think somebody else has the wrong room number.” she kept her voice even, but let some irritation seep through. “There’s a cat in there that’s not mine.”

“Oh, no, that’d be your roommate’s.”

“My assignment email said I had a super single.” Ranfan scowled at the person behind the table.

“Oh, Miss Chang was a last-second assignment. You must not have gotten the email about it.” they smiled at her. Ranfan didn’t smile back.

“Thanks.” she said drily, and turned to stalk back to her room. She would just have to spend as much time as possible hanging out with Ling, so as to avoid the little pest and her demon cat as much as possible.

\---

Avoiding Mei wasn’t particularly difficult. The pest had brought a folding screen which, combined with the way the room’s desks and cork-boards were set up, neatly split the room in two so they didn’t have to see each other. Avoiding her cat, on the other hand, was actively impossible. It wandered the room as it pleased while she was in class, getting its black and white hair over everything she owned, which included her stage blacks since the closets had no doors. At least Edward agreed with her that the thing was a little demon, after it made an attempt at biting his finger off when he came over to work with her on their theater tech project.

After that, when Mei insisted Edward must’ve provoked her ‘sweet innocent Xiao Mei’ and refused to apologise, their unspoken mutual agreement to ignore each other and avoid getting in trouble went out the window. The first thing to go was Mei’s perfume, which Ranfan unscrewed the cap on and set near the edge of the desk where her demon cat liked to jump up. One yelp and two thuds later, Mei came back from the bathroom to a heavily perfumed cat hiding under her bed. The next perfume she bought was almost offensively floral, and Ranfan was certain Mei only sprayed it so much to annoy her.

Next was her shampoo, which Ling suggested half filling with Nair. That was too obvious, though, and too extreme regardless. Instead, Ranfan emptied the special dandruff-reducing stuff and refilled it with the cheapest dollar store shit she could find. The conditioner she filled with the same brand of shampoo, and within a week Mei’s usually impeccable mane of hair was frizzy and rapidly filling with pale flakes of scalp. She bought new products after two, and a couple days later Ranfan found herself staring in the mirror at herself with patchy red-brown hair.

This was too far. This meant war.

\---

“You bitch!” Ranfan screeched, flinging the door open hard enough it slammed against the wall, startling Xiao Mei from its perch on Mei’s desk. Mei looked up wearing a perfectly practiced expression of innocence, and Ranfan flung the sopping wet shirt in her hand at her roommate’s face with all the strength she could muster. “I need these for class!” she yelled, slamming the door shut behind herself so nobody would come interrupt.

“Like hell you do.” Mei spat, peeling the bleach-stained black shirt from her skin and glaring daggers at Ranfan. “And how is it my fault if you picked up my powdered bleach instead of your powdered detergent?” she flicked her wrist, tossing the shirt to land on the cat-hair-covered floor. “You should pay more attention.” she grinned, her voice positively poisonous in its sweetness.

“You mixed it in my detergent.” Ranfan seethed, hands curling into fists at her sides.

“Prove it.” Mei crossed her arms. “Even if you can, it’s not like I’d get in any kind of trouble for it. They’re just some dumb emo clothes that deserved to be burnt years ago.”

Ranfan screamed again, and lunged at the younger girl. Mei fell from her chair with a single punch, and a second later Ranfan cursed as her roommate’s rolling desk chair was tipped over and scraped her shin. Then Mei was back on her feet, perfectly manicured nails scratching at Ranfan’s face as she screeched like a wild thing.

Ranfan managed to catch one of her wrists, planted her feet, and threw the smaller girl across the room. Mei flew right through her stupid folding screen, hit the top of the little table built into Ranfan’s bed frame, and bounced on the bed once before scrambling to her feet. A large smear of black soaked the front of her shirt, and Ranfan winced as she realized that was her calligraphy ink. Mei looked down at herself, and screamed again.

“This was fifty dollars!” she howled, launching herself at Ranfan and landing heel against her sternum. Ranfan staggered back, but managed to catch one of Mei’s heels and yanked it up over her head, keeping the smaller girl off the ground.

“And replacing everything _you ruined_ will be hundreds!” she roared, turning and flipping Mei over her head to slam down on the floor. She dropped a knee on top of her roommate, breathing hard, and gripped her wrists hard enough to bruise. “Next time you mess with my things, I’ll black both your eyes.” she hissed, glaring down at Mei.

“Did it ever occur to you.” Mei snarled, glaring right back. “That this is all your own fault for treating me like shit from the day we met?”

“Are you seriously trying to use that to justify destroying my clothes?” Ranfan scowled. “You were an annoying brat, always trying to butt in whenever Ling and I were hanging out when all you did was get born to his dad’s second wife. You didn’t grow up with us, we had no obligation to like you.”

“I wanted to get to know you.” Mei spat, twisting her arms violently and freeing her wrists. Ranfan leaned her weight back on the balls of her feet, and watched warily as Mei scooted back and sat up. “I thought that maybe we could start fresh, now that we’re grown-ups, but you’re just as big a bully as ever.”

“Ling and I may have bullied you when we were dumb little kids.” Ranfan admitted. “But we’ve grown out of that. I’m no more a bully than you are.”

Mei sighed, scooting back a bit farther until she could slump against her bed. Her eyes landed on something over Ranfan’s shoulder, and she turned to see what Mei was looking at. Along the wall above the bedside table, a spray of black ink was slowly dripping down the pale paint. More ink was trickling over the edges, visibly seeping into the wood as it travelled down to pool on the floor.

“I’m not getting my pet deposit back.” Mei chuckled.

“Probably not.” Ranfan agreed, pushing herself to her feet with a groan. “C’mon, let’s fix this place up a bit before the RA comes to ask what all the yelling was.”

“Good plan.” Mei nodded, standing herself and grimacing down at her clothing. “I liked this shirt.” she said despairingly.

Ranfan said nothing, just went and righted the inkwell. The project she’d been working on was toast, but she left the paper on the table and went instead for her stash of black shirts which were old and worn enough to be used as rags. “You probably shouldn’t put that in your hamper.” she warned as Mei pulled her shirt off. “Or if you do, wrap it in something black to keep it from staining anything else.”

“Thanks.” Mei sighed. Ranfan looked over, and winced at the sight of a hard red mark across the back of Mei’s shoulders.

“That’s going to leave a mark.” she commented, gesturing at her back when Mei looked at her.

“Sure feels like it.” Mei groaned, rubbing at the angry red line. “You’re stronger than I thought.”

“I’m not sure if I should feel flattered or offended.” she deadpanned.

Mei rolled her eyes.

They worked in silence for another few minutes, Ranfan using one of her shirt-rags and some hand sanitizer to try to clean up the floor and table legs a smidge, and right when she thought they were going to fall back into their mutually agreed-upon silence Mei sighed and folded her screen up to lean against their desks. “I’d rather not hate you.” she said simply. “Mom and Dad love you like family, and I don’t want us to always be fighting or ignoring each other.”

“It would certainly make rooming with you easier.” Ranfan said after a few seconds. Mei nodded contemplatively, but said nothing. Ranfan sighed, and went back to scrubbing at the ink stains. “For what it’s worth... I do regret being so cruel to you when we were children. Ling is like family to me, and I-” she paused, biting the inside of her lip.

“And you?” Mei prompted.

“I always did want a little sister.” Ranfan glanced over at Mei, and found her smiling.

“I’m not sure about sisters.” she said, rubbing at her back. “But can we agree to put the past behind us and act like adults?”

“That sounds doable.” Ranfan smiled slightly.

“How about I grab a plastic bag and we take this ink-soaked stuff down to rinse again with your bleached things?” Mei suggested, gesturing at the old shirts which had done their job and absorbed the mess on the tabletop.

“That might mitigate the stains, at least.” Ranfan nodded. She’d still have to replace them, but they wouldn’t look _awful_ in the meantime. And now, she and Mei could talk about the issue like calm, rational adults. Hopefully. She’d just have to wait and see how long that lasted.


End file.
